I was ready to end this rehearsal, Camille was hanging, waiting for my move, she had instructions as to what to do. I was curious of how she was going to respond next. As far as the story was concerned, she was dead. We hadn't rehearsed the actual killing, only the torture prior to it. I approached her, she was ready.

The scene was similar to one I had tried many times with Margot and a few times with Marie and Rosie. Every performed has her own way of handling a scene like this. Margot was convincing, she was a trained actress, after all, with some plays in Hungary, including one where she played a male character. Marie and Rosie were just beginning, but had a few months of workshops. Camille had two days of training, until now, and this rehearsal... that was it. I was curious.

I grabbed Camille's head, by her hair, to raise it and to look at it for a moment before letting it fall back. I was impressed. She held the expression throughout the entire scene. Her lips parted slightly, her breathing, because there was breathing, so slight that it didn't reveal itself. I told her not to hold her breath, just not to breath in and out normally. She had been reheashing on her own, apparently, because she was doint it very well.

The two young people on the cross, in the Haitian film, had a lot more confort that Camille had at this time. But they were naked. Which made things a bit uncomfortable for them. They were young, a man and a woman, and their naked arms were touching because her arms were on top of his, both tied to the patibulum with hard ropes. They had te be there, still, as long as it took to make a panning and travelling shot around them, to show both bodies in frontal position. That's the scene that the priests, nuns, town's people from upstate New York saw that night. That's the scene I was the most concerned because, obviously, I was using the image of the cross in a political movie, with a naked couple attached to it.

I was impressed with Camille, as my audience was impressed with the haitian film. They loved it, a nun, who had done work in Haiti was in tears, not one complaint was heard. They all praised the film, one person compared it to Picasso's Guernica... I passed the test, I was ready for Cannes, and I was ready to go and look for Margot.

My life, at that moment, had taken a huge step. I had dared to do what I felt was a very violent, challenging and strange movie and it worked. I was going to dare to do more. It was during the time I was working on the Haitian film, while shooting the recreations of Haitian slaves crucified in the sugar cane fields in Cuba, that I learned a lot about the life of people in colonial times in those parts, their rituals, their dramas, and I came up with a script that I think needs a lot of guts to produce and a lot of guts to act in it. When I showed the haitian film to the priests, I knew I could do that film, and now, looking at Camille, I know she can play the part.